Advice from an amateur sommelier about pairings with home-made meals

Springtime Sunday Dinner – Roast Lamb

Food: A boneless leg of lamb, stuffed generously with fresh oregano, rosemary, and garlic…how perfect for a Springtime Sunday! Served with roasted red potatoes with rosemary and peas seasoned with mint.

A word about lamb … one often sees frozen leg of lamb sold in supermarkets and it’s usually identified as being from New Zealand. This is almost always grass-fed lamb which tends to have a stronger lamb flavor. The fresh lamb typically sold in most markets is U.S. raised and is most often grass-fed but finished off with grain. This is usually a milder tasting lamb. If you are fortunate enough to have access to locally raised lamb, this is usually grass-fed.

Wine:2009 Chateau Jean Faux Sainte-Radegonde Grand Vin de Bordeaux. One of the truly great wine and food pairings is red bordeaux wine and roasted lamb. Unfortunately, bordeaux wine is often on of the most expensive wines in the world. At $20 a bottle, this Chateau Jean Faux is one of the most affordable and delicious bordeaux that I have found. The winery is tucked away in a quiet corner of the Bordeaux wine region about half way between the city of Bordeaux and the town of Bergerac. Sainte-Radegonde is situated just beyond the boundary that defines the Saint Emilion AOC, truly one of the most renowned wine regions of Bordeaux. Go to the website below to read about and see pictures of this beautiful area.

The wine is 80% Merlot and 20% Cabernet Franc.

Tasting: The nose can best be described as warm (yes, I know, that sounds weird) with a wonderful aroma of black cherries. On the palate, one gets a lovely flavor of “hedgerow jam” (an amalgam of mixed wild berries one might find in a hedgerow), with the most prevalent of the berry tastes being wild cherry. There is an unmistakable flavor of allspice on the long, lingering finish. What a nice wine … by itself or, especially, with the lamb.